The Final Testament of Ghetsis Harmonia
by An Author's Pen
Summary: "This is the place where the world stands still, and I can make it turn." Ghetsis' life and choices, in his own words.


_These documents were delivered to the Unova headquarters of the International Police by person or persons unknown. It is evident that the documents were written at different times, not as one unified whole. All are handwritten, in an unsteady pen, most on lineless paper. In places the ink was smeared by water and often the letters were written so small as to be almost unreadable. I debated whether to edit this transcript for punctuation, but in the end opted to leave it untouched._

 _The document is signed by Ghetsis Harmonia, the infamous mastermind behind the terrorist organization Team Plasma. His son, N Harmonia, has confirmed that the handwriting matches his father's. I do not know if the contents of these pages brings us any closer to understanding this man or his criminal enterprises - it is clear to me that he was deeply disturbed. But, believing that this record may nonetheless be of value, I leave to your discretion, Sir, what will be done with it._

 _Yours,_

 _Agent Looker, ID # 3285792_

* * *

The sages came to my town when I was just a boy. Even though the year had been hard, we made them a splendid feast. Lights were strung from roof to roof, and the girls whirled down the streets. I remember how the their paper fans flashed, catching the festival lights.

And I was told to sing. They say I sing like the wind in the leaves, that my voice is like a bubbling spring on a clear day. That's what they say. But my voice has always sounded thin and weak to me. Singing has never brought me anything I wanted.

I remember how they watched me, these old men in their strange robes, so intently that I faltered in my song.

The next morning my father told me that a great honor had come upon our family. The sages has consented to take me as one of their own.

It was not a bad life. It was, to be sure, an easier life than I would have lived in the village, breaking my back bending to harvest the crops. They took my talent at singing as a sign that I was favored by the gods, and so I got the best of even the priestly work. Instead of scrubbing the altars, I sat with the older boys and learned the ancient lore. I learned quickly, and well, and in time they made me a proper disciple. I swallowed the tales hungrily, as if my whole life I'd lived off gruel and water, and for the first time was tasting fruit.

We traveled Unova, mending old altars and establishing new ones, telling tales to children, and surviving off the hospitality of villages. As a boy, I'd thought the sages grand, but soon I learned that the fine old robes were thin and much-mended. In urban areas, they were more likely to scoff at us, and send us away with baskets of decaying vegetables. In one town, a boy tossed an over-ripe tomato at Sage Gorm. It splattered on his face, pungent and sour. I felt the anger inside me burst like that tomato. "Will the gods punish them, for their disrespect?" I asked.

Hearing me, the older sages shook their heads. "That is not the way of the gods. That young man's insolence will be met with misfortune, in time, which will be of his own making. But it is not for us to wish the wrath of the gods on others."

For my question, they set me to work digging the latrines that night. It was hard work, and the anger inside me only festered. My shovel strokes grew sharper and more brutal. When I finished the first hole, I spat into it and watched the frothy whiteness of my spittle curl on the ground like a spring flower. When I looked up, Sage Gorm was watching me.

Defiantly, I raised my head. "If I were one of the great gods, I'd have punished that boy for disrespecting you."

Gorm's brow furrowed. He said nothing and drew away. But in the passing weeks I noticed him watching me, his brow still drawn tight.

I began to grow frustrated with the petty tales old woman shared with us when we paused to honor their home-made shrines. It seemed to me those gods were nothing more than the memories of sudden storms and sudden clear skies. Myth, ritual, tradition - what point was there in bowing before gods that couldn't _change_ anything?

There was only one god I cared to think about – the god who was both two and one. The sages whispered that this god had created our very world.

Created it! My heart was kindling, and this was my flame.

[Transcription Note: _A new page begins here. The writing is full of cross-outs and ink blots_.]

I misjudged the distance, and when I arrived to place flowers on the small shrine, it was already grown almost dark. The area around the shrine was cleared of underbrush. Finding a patch of soft moss, I decided to sleep there for the night, rather than stumble back through the woods and lose myself.

The forest grew still and eerie as the hours passed. I was drowsy and yet on-edge. Sleep was still far away. I hardly noticed when I first began to sing, one of the simple peasant hymns that called for a long summer and bountiful crops. I found myself, for once, enjoying the song: the easy, repeating rhymes, the assonance smooth on my tongue. When I finished, something about the forest seemed altered. The greens burst more greenly under the silver moon, and a scent arose on the light breeze that was earthy and sweet. Suddenly emboldened, I raised my voice, breaking into a new fervor of song.

It was a kind of enchantment. I sang myself out, my whole repertoire, in tongues both old and new, and it was only when I had no more lyrics, when my throat ached sweetly, that I passed straight into sleep.

I was wandering in a land of only song, illuminated in hues of mossy green and fungal oranges. Around me everything danced and swayed. The understanding came to me, slowly, like rain soaking into the soil, that I was not alone. In my land of song a new presence danced and flitted, rosy and free.

I raised my voice and she came to me, reaching out to take my hand. We danced together, I think, we danced somehow, and she spun, spun, and everything spun with her. Then she reached out with a hand like a smooth gray stone, and grasped me and pulled me into her.

A moment passed, a dizzy rosy moment, the air was singing, the world had gone away. We were one and the same, and she was outside me and inside of me, all at once. I threw back my head and tried to cry out, but my screams rose up as song.

[TN _: the text breaks off for several lines, then resumes in a messier hand_ ]

I woke, soaked and shaking. I was wet with morning dew that dribbled onto my lip and when I licked it, a taste like honey. The sweetness split my stomach and I almost retched.

I raced back to our encampment. I knew the way. A strange fever was on me. I shook and trembled, my face moist with earthy sweat, and they called me ill and sent me to bed. But I did not sleep. The very thought brought on convulsions. Instead I pored over the elder's old tomes. I wrapped myself in words as if I were naked.

The third night of this, I wandered out, past the watchfires of the tents. I did not know where I was going, but my feet drew me back towards that old shrine. I came warily, my eyes engorged and bright, like a sewaddle, all yellow, unclothed even by leaves.

A baby, newborn, was resting amidst the weeds beneath the shrine. Its skin was red and wrinkled. Its eyes were mine.

I emptied my stomach on the grass. Then again, even though there was nothing inside. On my hands and knees, I bent over, retching, until I realized I was trying to vomit out my songs. Nauseous, I crawled over to that hideous, shrivelled thing, and slowly wrapped it in the rough brown folds of my novice's robe. It chittered and clucked at me, as if it were trying to sing.

The camp was astir when I returned, busy with the morning chores. I rang the bell and called them to attention. There were some murmurs – after all, I was only a novice, and had no right to call an assembly. But there was no objection when I stood myself on a stump of wood and began to speak.

I don't recall what I said. But I must have spoken of kings. Of kings and heroes and bold new ways, of a world waiting to be reforged, a potential that lay hidden, waiting for us to unlock it.

I said that I'd been sent a message – the chosen one himself, who would lead us all to salvation.

I brandished the baby like a firebrand.

My voice must have some magic. Otherwise, they would not have heard me to the end. Once I stopped speaking, the murmur became a roar. I was pelted with sticks, stones, patches of grass, dirt clinging to the frail roots.

They broke camp quickly, leaving me bruised and bleeding. I was lucky to live, probably; heresy was no light crime in the elders' mind, as if they themselves had not committed it thrice over, sitting humbly at hearth fires and letting themselves be mocked. I laughed to myself and decided I had no regrets.

Then I felt the touch of a cool cloth on my forehead. It was Sage Gorm. He stared at me with his dirt-brown eyes and held one hand over his heart.

"You're my king now, Lord, and I will follow you to the death."

He spoke in a normal tone of voice, tone so at odds with his words that it took me a moment to comprehend them.

He pulled aside the cloth of my sleeve to reveal the baby. "Has this one been fed?"

I said nothing, and didn't resist when he took it from my arms.

[TN _: The text breaks off here, and resumes on a new page_ ]

We found it a miltank to nurse from. Feeding was the only time it was silent; otherwise it squalled and squalled. Only my singing would soothe it, but my singing voice had become hateful to me. More often than not, I let it cry itself into exhausted silence.

The two of us travelled from town to town, in the steps of the encampment that had left us behind. But I chose my audiences carefully: the sullen boy-men that played at sticks, the girl-women who sat bored and bleary as they watched their mothers' laundry, the old folks who gathered in loose, mumbling circles and squinted through milk-veined eyes up at the sun.

"This world is going to change," I told them. I told them they were going to change it.

I watched, with interest and disgust, as the boys dropped their sticks, the girls straightened their spines, and the old looked at me with abrupt clarity. We were all of us sick of decay, of dissatisfaction, of a world that dared to spin on as if we were no consequence to it. Sick of complacency, sick of tradition, and smug, easy power.

In a back alley I came across a man, tall and patrician in his features, beating a herdier. The creature's moans were thin and pitiful. I stared at its clenched, powerful teeth, the corded muscles visible against skin that had grown tight, and marvelled at its needless submission.

"Stop," I said, in a voice I knew was cold and commanding, that cut the moment open. The man froze, his eyes raising to meet mine, anger already gathering on his brow, and his mouth hanging slightly open: in defiance, in justification of his right -

I pitied him and scorned him and I understood him just as I understand myself.

I lowered my eyes to meet the herdier's.

"Are you so worthless and so low, that you must bow to him?" I asked.

And power shifted, in that moment. I watched it sap from the man's suspended fist and flow into the herdier, into me.

This is it, I thought, dazzled and off-balance. This is the place where the world stands still, and I can make it turn.

[TN: _A slip of paper of thicker make than the others. The penmanship is more careful here_.]

Here begins the Black Book, which is the Book of Ideals. First the land was one. Yet unity was not enough to prevent hardship. The Hero of Ideals looked out on the land, and saw Unum was sundered. For some lived in security, while others shivered outside. Some lived with full bellies, while others starved. How can this land be one, he asked, when it is so clearly divided? When he told this to his twin brother, his brother accused him of sundering Unum with his ideals. But the Hero of Ideals knew that Unum was already sundered. So in seeking to repair the world, the Hero of Ideals fought his brother, summoning Unum to his side. But only part of Unum came to him – the thunderous black dragon, Zekrom. The other part went to his brother – the terrible white dragon, Reshiram.

Thus was Unum sundered.

[TN: _scrawled at the bottom in larger letters_ ]

Yes, this is the root of our stagnation, the evil center that saps away our nation's growth. Unum is broken when the one has power over the other.

We will call ourselves TEAM PLASMA, plasma being the most abundant form of matter in the universe, the thing which holds together and connects all of us - this is the new UNUM. Like the hero I will first split the world, into the powerful and the powerless, humans and pokemon. Only then can they be brought back together . . . and made one . . .

[ _on the back of the page_ ]

The child will be the bridge . . . it already babbles mostly in the pokemon's tongue.

The first time it spoke to me, it said "da da", and I slapped it in the face. I didn't think. The world slowed for a moment, as it stared at me as red bloomed on its rosy, ugly, fleshy cheeks [TN: illegible] . . . months until we could get another human word out of it.

[TN: _the following pages appear to be ripped from a diary_ ]

We're on number theory now . . it's very frustrating. The child thinks perfection can be laid out in formulas, he thinks the world is something that can be solved.

It's a dangerous attitude, I'll have to find another object lesson to correct it. Passivity! It's simply cowardice, possibly mixed with sloth. What we need is force and persuasion, not mathematics. I watch as he dresses in the morning, properly, in layered robes, trimmed in careful finery, a delicate crown for his fungal head. By evening the wrap is lost, the crown askew, the robes loose like blankets. I must give Concordia a talking-to, those girls spoil him . . . [TN: the text resumes in a darker pen]

I am a visionary surrounded on all sides by fools. I met our latest batches of recruits - the sheer, gaping stupidity of them, their petty aspirations and smug complacence - ah well, they have enthusiasm, at least, and even a king needs his pawns .. . the freak still refuses to play chess. Says it's not fair that the pawns can only move one way . .. I explained once more that the chessboard reflects our current social condition, which he must understand in order to transform, but he spins that infernal rubix cube and stares out the window.

I need his heart pure, yes, but does his head have to be full of fluff as well? At least he impresses the recruits. Trotted him out to say a few words - he barely got through them before he got distracted by a purloin. Some nonsense about a thorn in its foot . . .

It makes my blood boil to see a crown on that undeserving head, but patience and subtlety will be my virtue. If he could only wake the dragon! Then it would all be worth it. All of it. All of it.

[TN _: scribbled in the margins of a team Plasma report_ ]

A minor complication has arisen . . a girl. How silly I feel, writing this down. If she means to seduce him, then it is her I pity . . . he is hardly human. It would be like fucking a pokemon. Even thinking of it, I shudder. . . when the freak has served its purpose, I will find a cage for it. I will lock it safely away.

[TN _: The paper now used is of different make, and from this point forward the document grows very difficult to read_ ]

They don't understand, still, they understand nothing, these fools who hold me close and cosset me, forcing honey into my mouth between my clenched lips. They tell me It has come to see me, It says that like it or not we are Father and Son and It will wait until I am ready, because he loves loves loves _[TN: The word is written in increasing size, violently crossed out each time]_ WHAT DOES IT KNOW this pink inhuman thing, wearing MY HAIR wearing MY EYES They have trapped me in this cave where the wind shrieks outside it is singing to me, still singing AND THERE IS NO SILENCE no peace, they will not leave me, WHY, he came in and took my hand in his warm paw and said, Father I see there is so much I don't understand This hate and anger inside of you But even if you were false to your dream I still believe in it I will be the change you prophesied And walk the path you turned from So Be At Peace

Even when I hissed at It and spit at It and slapped its dirty white paws it embraced me

I didn't want to change the world I wanted to break it I wanted to spit on everything squalid and weak all those desperate believers, and him, him worst of all, who never dreamed of crushing, who answered weakness with weakness, who was something taken out of me that night - that night, when she drew out my core that was melody and severed me from it, entered me, violated me, turned me into this rabid, hungry thing, and if I had the power to rewrite the world, I would string her out on a wooden plank in the heat of the hottest desert, in a place that sucked the very sound from the air, and leave her there to rot, until her inner being was a soft, stinking pile and her skin thin and dry, and with her last breath she would sing to me, and GIVE IT BACK

and give it back

[TN: _Here the document trails off into illegible scribbles_ ]


End file.
